Who Should Govern Nature?

People often feel that the government should be in charge of natural resources because the environment belongs to us all and the government represents the people. While there's no single way for renewable resource ownership, people tend towards government control a little too often. It can hurt instead of help.

References
Arnold, J.E.M. and Cambell, J.G. 1985. Collective Management of hill Forests in Nepal: The Community Forestry Development Project.
Harding, Garrett. 1968. The Tragedy of the Commons. Science. 13 (162) p.1243-1248.
Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the Commons. New York: Cambridge University Press.

[harmhoeks]

"People who are affected by the rules should make the rules"
Mutual responsibility. Autonomous group control. Transparency. Mind=blown

[dougwebb]

I'm half way through 'Governing the Commons' just now, and it's blowing my mind. then I realized most people probably will never hear of the book... perhaps I should help make a short and attractive video to explain the concepts? Then I found this. thanks for the great work!

[zaikay]

I love the animations on these videos... the Nepal dude made me laugh.

[ymeynot]

I liked the video, but I think it is only one half of the coin. You touched on it briefly at the end, but the system of local control only works when it is the locals working the land for their personal survival.
The purpose of governmental control is to protect the little guy from corporate domination and resource depletion. When the entity doesn't care how much damage they do because they don't live there anyways.

[cheesandpinuts]

But there is one thing I like to point out. Local resource control is done best at a local level. So the system in Turkey works great at a local level. However, what would have happened if the towns east and west of Alanya would fish in such way that they block the fish migration to Alanya.  In other words, what happens when you size up the responsible communities for your argumentation. When is a community to large or scattered to share a resource?

[alexiszhoujones]

I teach ESL Economics and I rarely find videos that the kids can actually understand. I really appreciate the simple explanations and examples you have in your videos. Thank you for all the hard work

[prabalbhusal]

This was such a beautiful video to watch, I loved your use of Nepal as example. It made everything so clear, thank you

[Julia]

Awesome channel! I love channels like this or ted ed, where everything is explained visually, textually and verbally.

[dylandreisbach]

You deserve more subscribers for your work in animation. And the humor.

[jboy]

This is brilliant! Please continue to make these videos. They are so helpful. Thank you so much.

[natttomes]

we need more local government control and less government control from who knows where.

[larzpeterson]

why... how... are you this unpopular? you should have at least 17 million views on all your videos. you put alot of thought, research, time, and SO MUCH HEART in all your videos. I'm pretty sure this is a back up account and your real first account is out there some where with the appropriate amount of subscribers.

[HenriqueRMota]

Greetings from Brazil!

You are doing amazingly good videos and I hope that your channel can get some sort of financing because I want to see many more of them. Good Luck! 

[oldrabbit]

not sure if i understand it correctly, but you said in the begining of this video that deforestation was already a big problem in Nepal to the point the government feel the need to step in. Then later you said these forest was traditionally managed by local communities. Does that mean both the government and local communities already failed to manage Nepali forests? And then we are supposed to give it back to the local and call it a day?

[AbdulazizUgas]

the new fishermen rules going with the flow of the fish migration was super cute.

[Laezar]

This works fine when effect are localized. But when a local practice affect other area then central regulation is needed. One obvious exemple would be climate change, there needs to be a concerted effort to change things there because there isn't a single part of the equation whose short term interest is to reduce their CO2 emissions.
Same with things like dumping toxic waste into rivers, usually those who are dumping the waste aren't those receiving the consequences (unless those consequences are pitchforks and torches) so there is no incentive to actually work together there. In those cases regulation are important.


We shouldn't aim to regulate everything, but we should see regulations as strict limit on what is and isn't ok, which then can be adapted into more local systems.

[theredwolfzz]

love the videos!! keep them up I hope you grow!

[kaylacaruana]

Thank you for your videos. They are really helpful :)

[TimJSwan]

This video is absolutely fantastic. Keep it up!
Also, are you using After Effects? I love the animations.

[graveeking]

I think the best solution to how governing a system should work is a mix of both the options presented here.

I think a 'higher-up' or politician like figure can be useful because they're less likely to have a bias because they don't use that resource - it's their job to make that resource as beneficial to *everyone* long term. Which means other people outside of those using that resource - they'll be more likely to care about side-effects and welcoming newcomers that'll be more efficient for everyone - rather than those who just currently use the resource.
They get paid the same amount either way - however they lose their job if they fuck it up, so it's basically a position where they HAVE to find the best possible solution.

However, at the same time, it pays to have someone from that background who knows how things work and are more likely to realize the consequences of whatever actions they choose to take.
This is why I think specialists should be elected to manage specific fields - ones who know that they're talking about but also no longer rely on that resource to survive so they won't be tempted to exploit it either for short-term gain.

And ideally, someone who still lives locally so they'll be easier to contact and more swiftly respond if things go wrong.
So in these example given I'd say the best choice would have been making someone at the forest-park office the official who dictates the rules - with the government only intervening if they become corrupt or aren't doing their job.

I know a lot of people hate bureaucracy and middle-management styled systems but there's a reason it exists and is often so important to have around. Especially since there's nothing stopping said middle-management doing other jobs at the same time.